Witness Evidence

[Thumpalumpacus]

Just to be clear.  I don't doubt that the studies show that certain aspects of witness testimony. I only doubt the conclusion that testimony is not to be trusted at all, or is wholly or even mostly inaccurate.   I'll try to write some comments on the studies provided within a few days

Keep in minf as you compose your reply:

1) No one is arguing that it cannot be trusted at all, so far as I've read;

2) No one is arguing that it is wholly inaccurate; and

3) No one is arguing that it is mostly inaccurate.

What you're being told in this thread does not pertain to the accuracy of memory, but rather, the reliability of it. It's a subtle distinction, but I'll try to explain it.

Being able to rely on the memory of a witness carries with it a lot of assumptions -- that the witness saw the important aspect of the event, that the witness understood it in the context of the surrounding events, that the witness wasn't the recipient of suggestion, and so on. Now, a witness's memory may be 95% accurate, but the thing is, we don't know which 5% is wrong. If he remembers 95% of a murder accurately, but doesn't clearly remember the perpetrator's face or the license plate of the getaway car, his testimony isn't useful. But because of the plastic nature of memory, we have no way of knowing which elements he got right or wrong without corroboration. He may think he clearly remembers the face or make and model of car, but we don't know that for a fact.

Corroboration may be from other eyewitnesses (which then introduces other problems, because they rarely match up on all details, meaning both witnesses are contradicted at certain points in each of their narratives -- the more witnesses, the better we might be able to ascertain some facts, but also, the more contradictions we encounter); or corroboration may come from physical evidence, which goes much further to strengthen the eyewitness testimony insofar as it isn't subject to the vagaries of memory.

Just some things to chew on as you think your way through this.